Chap­ter 90 of All the Col­ors of the Dark por­trays Saint as she devotes her week­ends to work­ing at the pub­lic library in Pano­ra. She approach­es her tasks with a qui­et grace, much like a swan glid­ing effort­less­ly over water. While man­ag­ing the usu­al library duties—handling inquiries, check­ing out books, and main­tain­ing the out­dat­ed card catalog—Saint finds qui­et moments to focus on a per­son­al mis­sion: research­ing a girl who appears in a paint­ing. This pur­suit becomes a cen­tral part of her rou­tine, and she care­ful­ly sifts through records and doc­u­ments, hop­ing to uncov­er more about the mys­te­ri­ous girl. Each day spent at the library offers a blend of rou­tine tasks and the thrill of uncov­er­ing poten­tial leads, as Saint grows increas­ing­ly absorbed in her inves­ti­ga­tion. The set­ting of the library becomes a sym­bol of Saint’s ded­i­ca­tion and deter­mi­na­tion to solve the mys­tery, even if it means spend­ing long hours in iso­la­tion, away from the more typ­i­cal teenage dis­trac­tions.

Saint’s com­mit­ment to solv­ing the mys­tery takes a more active form as she reach­es out to coro­ners and hos­pi­tal recep­tion­ists across sev­er­al dis­tricts, all in search of infor­ma­tion relat­ed to the girl in the paint­ing. Despite her own self-doubts and the protests from her grand­moth­er, who express­es con­cerns about the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the inves­ti­ga­tion, Saint con­tin­ues to pur­sue the inquiry. Dur­ing a casu­al moment shared with her friend Nor­ma over lemon muffins at a café, Nor­ma voic­es her skep­ti­cism, stat­ing, “He can’t know what she looks like,” sug­gest­ing that the per­son Saint is search­ing for may not even exist in the way she believes. How­ev­er, Saint is unde­terred, and as she watch­es Patch embrace Misty at the bus stop, she becomes more con­vinced that there is a con­nec­tion between the paint­ing and the miss­ing girl. Her resolve strength­ens, and she remains deter­mined to uncov­er the truth, even as oth­ers ques­tion the direc­tion of her inves­ti­ga­tion. This inner tur­moil and exter­nal skep­ti­cism cre­ate a pow­er­ful ten­sion, push­ing Saint to con­front both her doubts and the over­whelm­ing need to find clo­sure.

Through­out the next year, Saint’s ded­i­ca­tion to the search becomes more focused and method­i­cal. She learns that Patch is also involved in track­ing down the par­ents of miss­ing teens, tak­ing metic­u­lous notes dur­ing his morn­ing rides. Mean­while, Saint con­tin­ues her exhaus­tive search, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on pub­lic and state records, and spend­ing con­sid­er­able time por­ing over death cer­tifi­cates. She begins to ques­tion if Grace, the girl in the paint­ing, may be old­er than she ini­tial­ly thought, expand­ing her search para­me­ters to include those who might have been over­looked. The toll of her relent­less efforts becomes evi­dent, as Saint makes near­ly three hun­dred calls to the con­fused rel­a­tives of poten­tial match­es, each con­ver­sa­tion bring­ing her clos­er to an answer. She changes her approach, lead­ing with the ques­tion, “Do you know a boy named Patch?” in hopes of uncov­er­ing any con­nec­tions that might link back to him. Despite fac­ing dead ends and unre­turned calls, she per­sists, dri­ven by an unshak­able need to uncov­er the truth, even if it means con­fronting uncom­fort­able pos­si­bil­i­ties along the way.

Saint con­sid­ers widen­ing her search fur­ther, even con­tem­plat­ing the idea of access­ing fed­er­al records, but the absence of a last name com­pli­cates her efforts. After a year of watch­ing Dr. Tooms, she begins to lose inter­est, becom­ing con­vinced that he holds no answers about Grace. Patch, in the mean­time, con­tin­ues to con­tact her at strange hours, leav­ing cas­sette tapes filled with his fran­tic thoughts and vivid mem­o­ries of Grace. His rec­ol­lec­tions are filled with sen­so­ry details, such as Grace’s scent, which reminds him of lemon and pep­per­mint, along with mem­o­ries of a par­tic­u­lar place near Baldy Point. These tapes, while dis­or­ga­nized and ram­bling, reflect Patch’s emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to Grace, and Saint finds her­self caught between his unre­solved feel­ings and her own search for answers. The tapes act as a bridge between the past and present, keep­ing the mem­o­ry of Grace alive for both Patch and Saint, even as Saint ques­tions the direc­tion of her own life.

Amidst the emo­tion­al chaos, Saint con­tin­ues to excel in school, dis­tanc­ing her­self from the social excite­ment of prom and col­lege dis­cus­sions. She choos­es a sim­pler appear­ance, tying back her long hair and adopt­ing a more under­stat­ed style, sig­nal­ing her desire to with­draw from the typ­i­cal teenage dis­trac­tions. How­ev­er, she can­not com­plete­ly escape the pull of the world around her, as she receives a momen­tary dis­trac­tion in the form of ros­es deliv­ered by Jim­my Wal­ters, who invites her to prom. The ges­ture forces Saint to con­front her emo­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly her con­flict­ed feel­ings about Patch. Her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma, encour­ages her to con­sid­er Jimmy’s invi­ta­tion, sub­tly remind­ing her that Patch has been rumored to be going to prom with Misty. This cre­ates an emo­tion­al tug-of-war with­in Saint as she con­tem­plates her mem­o­ries of Patch while also con­sid­er­ing the fresh pos­si­bil­i­ties that Jim­my rep­re­sents. The invi­ta­tion serves as a sym­bol of the new expe­ri­ences wait­ing for her, but the past still lingers, com­pli­cat­ing her deci­sion and show­cas­ing her inter­nal strug­gle between mov­ing on and hold­ing onto the past. This chap­ter is a turn­ing point for Saint, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of grow­ing up and the tough choic­es that come with nav­i­gat­ing rela­tion­ships, per­son­al growth, and unre­solved his­to­ries.